Embark on house to house SIM re-registration or your masts would be pulled down from my land — Chief warn telcos

The Chief of Oblieman in the Ga West Municipality Nii Ayitey Anumle Oyanka I has appealed to the mobile telecommunication companies to consider house to house re-registration of SIM cards to avoid the long disturbing queues.

He said failure to do so would have their telecom masts on his lands pulled down.

Nii Oyanka I who also serves as the World Human Rights Council noted that it is time the telcos treat their customers and by extension Ghanaians with respect.

According to him, Ghanaians should be able to register their SIM in their comfort zone and not forced to travel miles to join queues to register.

"Telcos should adapt the house to house SIM re-registration to show respect to Ghanaians. It doesn't make sense if we can't sit in our comfort zones to register our SIM cards when we keep on preaching about digitization. This is a clear disgrace to our Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia".

He noted that the SIM registration exercise is truly a laudable exercise that will help reduce the scam in the country.

"Let me charge those concerning the exercise to sit down and analyse the problems. There is a saying that education is different from wisdom. We cannot leave our homes and offices to join a long queue for SIM card re-registration when these telcos companies can easily build up applications to help Ghanaians register at the comfort of their homes. Telcos are making lot of money from Ghanaians and they have all to lose if Ghanaians refuse to register and their sim cards blocked.

"The telcos together with their agents can go house to house to sell SIM cards and do marketing but can't do house to house, office to office re-registration", King Oyanka added.

He urged individuals and groups kicking against the exercise to reconsider their thoughts.

"Even though the registration is an important exercise and those condemning the exercise have not sat down to know what the real problem is.

"Is it news to you that sometimes, people go to purchase new SIM cards and they are told the SIM is already registered. The question you have ask is whose name was used to register. So people buy such SIM cards and can do all dubious acts with them so we need to get a proper registration of cards to avoid those problems.

"These long queues at registration centres is all nonsense, senseless and useless. I have telecom companies and their network masts on my lands and they pay royalties to me and the government also deducts taxes from my royalties," King Oyanka emphasised.